In a message dated 23-Jun-99 09:44:38 Eastern Daylight Time,
jdo@star.le.ac.uk writes:
> What a pity Triumph never put the 6 cylinder engine into a TR4 chassis !
>
John, they did - although it was the TR4A chassis. (See my other post about
the differences between the TR4 and TR4A chassis). They called the 6
cylinder TR4A the TR5 in the UK and Europe, and the TR250 in the US. (My
wife calls the TR250 a "tarted up TR4" because of the stripe across the
bonnet. I don't think that she realized that the car had more ummph than
just a stripe). :-). Cheers.
BTW - as far as numbers produced:
TR4 40,253 ('61-'65)
TR4A 28,465 ('65-'67)
TR5 2,947 ('67-'68)
TR250 8,484 ('67-68)
As to why you don't see too many of these cars on the road (compared to TR3's
and TR6's) -- my opinion is:
1) they were driven long and hard because they were easy to maintain and were
"user friendly" i.e. rollup windows and other standard amenities (for the
day). So they were "driven to death." And then came the newer sports cars
(TR6) and then the demise of the convertible as being unsafe. So for several
years few people wanted a used convertible and many of them wound up at the
wrecking yard. (see next par).
2) The TR2/3's were side curtain so were considered more "antique." Plus
there had been 83,572 TR2/3/3A/3B's produced. So more of them were saved.
3) The were 94,619 TR6's produced.
However, numbers are NOT the only factor in worth of the car. Nomex on.
Cheers.
Art Kelly
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